Actually getting IE "locked down" and "tucked away" so it can't be used is extremely easy, just requires some creative thinking. Assuming these mysterious "IT Managers" have proper managed assets in place, they simply need to:

1. Lock IE down so users can't access any of the tabs inside "Internet Options"
2. Set the homepage to some internal "this browser is not supported, blah blah blah"
3. Set the proxy to some non-existant thing, and bypass for local addresses

And blamo, the only thing they can use it for is internal sites, but in doing so they are aware that they shouldn't be using it.

We don't do this here as we've locked IE down and the issues that have arisen by and large don't affect us (and rolling out the registry fixes for ADODB.STREAM to our 5000 workstations took just minutes anyways). But, if I had to lock IE out, that's the type
of thing I'd be looking at doing.

IE isn't very secure if you leave everything open but, as Jeremy says, its very easy to lock down.

And that German bloke's lockdown is totally clueless - if someone goes to My Computer and then types in a URL, it will happily bring it back without ever requiring to open iexplore.exe! If he knew how to use group policies he should have just locked it down.
Sheesh!

Definitely. Over the last year I've been very disappointed in eWeek's descent from something serious to "damn near op-ed pieces every time". The bias drives me crazy as it no longer serves me as an IT professional. I cancelled my subscription long ago.